Increasingly, Armenia is positioning itself as a software hub in the region. Many Armenia-based startups have connections and partnerships across the globe, from angel investors linked to the Armenian diaspora communities living in and around Silicon Valley to a number of prominent venture funds in Europe and beyond.

Yet, during Soviet times Armenia was mostly known as country with strong engineering background.

While in recent years Armenia has witnessed rapid growth in its IT sector, this has largely been concentrated in software development. In contrast, growth in the hardware industry has been much slower. This is beginning to change. Signals from both the government and the country’s many IT associations show a desire to push Armenia’s hardware credentials to the next level. There are already several successful examples of local hardware development, including but not limited to Armphone, Instigate, Synopsis and Mentor Graphics.

To explore this new interest and focus on the hardware industry, we’re holding an August Kolba Café on the topic of Hardware Development led by Adam Benzion on 16th August at 18:30 at ISTC. If you’re on your way to designing and launching a new hardware product, or just curious about the subject, then this public talk is for you. The talk will draw on Adam’s vast experience in the industry to explore the peculiarities of hardware development: from the type and number of people in the project team to the development, design and public launch phases. The talk will be delivered in English.  Please join the event here.

Adam Benzion is the co-founder of Hackster.io, the fastest growing community for hardware and IoT, recently acquired by Avnet. A recovered hardware entrepreneur himself, Adam looks to help people everywhere learn, build and share open source hardware design. Adam is a Microsoft alumni and lives in Seattle.

This talk is organized by Kolba Lab & Innovative Solutions and Technologies Center (ISTC) as part of the #Inno4dev project, funded by the European Union. We hope to see you there!